Gettysburg: Armored Warfare Review

Gettysburg: Armored Warfare is an interesting addition to the strategy war game genre. Not many games take place during the Civil War era but nonetheless I was looking forward to this game. The first thing you will notice in the game’s description is that it is an RTS/3rd Person Shooter. I found this to be the most intriguing concept. Being able to dish out orders then taking on the role of a soldier and dealing out large amounts of human controlled pain. However, there are some glancing details that needed to be addressed, fixed, and warned about when you are reading about this game.

This title, does not have a single player mode. The closest thing it has is “Practice Mode”. This pits you against an AI to test your newest armies and strategies. Now I am all for practicing out my various methods of conquering my enemy, however, I also think multiplayer only games are a smack in the face to many gamers. While this is a Steam title you must be connected to the internet to play the game. For those people who are not always connected to the internet and play their games in Steam’s offline mode they will be unable to enjoy this game to the fullest extent.

The inclusion of a story mode would be a major plus to this game. Or at least an easy to set up skirmish mode similar to Dawn of War or Command and Conquer. Maybe I am asking a bit much from an independent game made by a single person, but I digress. As I mentioned before there are many things missing that would make this game much better. This game needs a tutorial level really bad. The game just throws you into a game you know nothing about the controls at all. Step by step instructions may be misplaced in console games, but in strategy games such as this they are a necessity. Practice mode can help just by clicking units and buttons until something happens but it took me quite some time to figure out the game. Even then I had to resort to the internet to tell me how to play.

The idea of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare is very much there, but the execution is very poor. The clunky controls and the lack of a tutorial are major turn offs. I love strategy games and third person shooters but there are just some things that need to be done. Once I found out how to go into third person I was able to get some work done on the battlefield. The major problem was giving orders to the AI controlled units that became an issue. It is difficult to focus on killing enemies while you are constant,y micromanaging your army. You almost never go into third person mode because your units may stray off the path etc. One thing I also never understood was some of the units. Some were from Civil War era while others were from the future sporting gatling guns and tanks. How is a musket supposed to fare against a full armored opponent. I believe the idea was to show diversity but it just did not mesh well.

I like what this game represents. It is a refreshing idea to gaming but the game somehow felt rushed and unfinished with a mix of over thinking and complication. I may be too stuck in my ways on strategy games like Civilization, Command and Conquer, and Dawn of War, but I really wanted to enjoy this game more. Unfortunately, my views on multiplayer only games prevented me from enjoying it to the fullest extent as the experience is totally derived on the user’s skill and the opponent’s skill. One person may love it because they are really good, and the other may not like it because they lose a lot. It is a catch 22 about rating this game. It is by no means bad or terrible. But it will not be winning any big time awards either. I give Gettysburg: Armored Warfare a 6.5/10 for having an original concept but not being a well executed project.